MADISON, Wis. _ With freshman Kobe King out for the season and sophomore D'Mitrik Trice out indefinitely, Wisconsin won't ever be fully healthy this season.
Yet perhaps Greg Gard's team has the potential for significant growth as the season unfolds.
Appearing to take advantage of the extra practice time that came with a break for finals, UW started fast against UW-Green Bay Saturday at the Kohl Center and was never threatened en route to an 81-60 victory.
"Practice time has been hard to come by," Gard said before the game, referring to a stretch of nine games in 20 days. "And practice time where we can work on us and not spend time quickly preparing for an opponent.
"We haven't gone live all the time in the past week but we've spent a lot of times trying to work on our things, specifically on the defensive end.
"That's helped."
UW (6-7), playing for the first time since recording a one-point victory over Western Kentucky on Dec. 13, recorded back-to-back victories for just the second time this season. That allowed the Badgers to move within one game of the .500 mark for the first time since Dec. 4 after a one-point victory at Penn State.
The Badgers, who led by 20 points at halftime and by 32 in the second half, improved their record against UW-Green Bay (5-8) to 20-0 at home and 23-1 overall.
The Phoenix, in full rebuilding mode with a roster that includes seven freshmen an only two seniors, lost for the second time in three days.
UW, which shot 54.9 percent in the victory over Western Kentucky, hit its first 10 shots Saturday and finished the first half at 61.3 percent (19 of 31) to take a 44-24 lead.
Freshman guard Brad Davison and junior forward Ethan Happ scored 13 and 12 points, respectively, in the opening half. Davison hit 6 of 10 shots and Happ hit 6 of 8.
Davison finished with 18 points. He hit just 1 of 7 3-pointers but scored on drives at will and hit 6 of 7 2-point attempts. Happ hit 7 of 9 shots and added eight rebounds and three assists and finished with 14 points.
Junior forward Khalil Iverson (12 points) hit 5 of 5 shots and was active on both ends of the court. Freshman Aleem Ford (nine points) hit 2 of 2 3-point attempts. Freshman forward Nate Reuvers, who scored a combined nine points on 4 for 18 shooting in UW's previous three games, added nine points, two rebounds and two blocks Saturday.
Guard Brevin Pritzl contributed another solid all-around game and finished with six points, seven rebounds and a team-high four assists.
The Badgers have struggled to stop teams from scoring for most of the season, as opponents were averaging 46.3 percent shooting and 66.5 points per game.
UW-Green Bay, which entered the game averaging 75.4 points per game because of a pace that translated into an average possession lasting 14.7 seconds, struggled to get open looks Saturday.
The Phoenix shot 36.4 percent in the opening half (8 of 22) and finished at 40 percent (20 of 50). The point total was just three above the team's season-low mark.
Despite the long layoff between games, UW was exceptionally sharp early.
The Badgers generally moved the ball well to get open looks and the shooters didn't disappoint. They hit their first 10 field-goal attempts, including two 3-pointers, to build a 25-9 lead with 13:12 left in the first half.
The first miss came with 11:40 left in the half when freshman walk-on Walt McGrory (four points) missed a 3-pointer from the right corner.
UW suffered through one ugly stretch in the opening half, highlighted by three consecutive turnovers in a span of 68 seconds.
That allowed UW-Green Bay to pull within 29-19 but Reuvers contributed five points and a block to spark a 13-0 run to help UW push the lead to 42-19.
The only drama that remained was the final margin of victory.
